The Great Powers and the American Civil War: A Select Bibliography

The following list of books is valuable for studying the foreign affairs of the Great Powers of Europe before and during the American Civil War. It also contains diplomatic and other studies dealing with Union and Confederate foreign relations during the conflict.

Adams, Ephraim Douglass. Great Britain and the American Civil War. 2 volumes. New York: Russell and Russell, 1925.

Bartlett, C.J. Defense and Diplomacy: Britain and the Great Powers, 1815-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.

__________. Peace, War and the European Powers, 1814-1914. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Lester, Richard I. Confederate Finance and Purchasing in Great Britain. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1975.

Mahin, Dean B. One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the American Civil War. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1999.

Matzke, Rebecca Berens. Deterrence through Strength: British Naval Power and Foreign Policy under Pax Britannica. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011.

May, Robert E., editor. The Union, the Confederacy, and the Atlantic Rim. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1995. Essays by Howard Jones, R.J.M. Blackett, Thomas Schoonover, and James M. McPherson.

McMillan, James F. Napoleon III. London: Longman, 1991.

McPherson, James M. War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

About William Young

Dr William Young is a retired historian with more than 30 years of experience in teaching and research. He has 18 years of teaching experience at the University of North Dakota and Valley City State University. Moreover, he was a historian in the United States Air Force History Program for 15 years. He possesses a doctoral degree in international and military history and master’s degrees in history and international relations. Young is the author of German Diplomatic Relations, 1871-1945 (2006), International Politics and Warfare in the Age of Louis XIV and Peter the Great (2004), and European War and Diplomacy, 1337-1815 (2003). He has also written 42 official Air Force unit histories, two monographs, and other studies. Young is the recipient of many history awards, including three U.S. Air Force Historian of the Year Awards and a U.S. Air Force History Program of the Year Award. He has studied and worked for 13 years overseas in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, and Saudi Arabia. He has traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. His hobbies include collecting and reading history books and attending college ice hockey games.